


Love can lead to war (just as peace can be found in death)

by Garecc, Gunpowderdtim (Garecc)



Series: Ready, Aim, Fire [32]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band), Ulysses Dies at Dawn - The Mechanisms (Album)
Genre: (Patroclus again), (Patroclus ofc), (first chapter), (rebodying), (second chapter), (third chapter), Angst, Canon Non-Binary Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Soldiers, Eye Trauma, Free Will, Gen, Genderfluid Gunpowder Tim (The Mechanisms), Gore, Gunpowder Tim Has ADHD, Heartbreak, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jonny/Tim is referenced and they are dating but jonny is Not Here, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Narratomancy, Necromancy, Neopronouns, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Tim is Achilles, Tim is Aphrodite, Tim is persephone, Tim uses ae/aer, Tim uses he/him, Tim uses she/her, Trojan War, Violence, all three, edit: Jonny also shows up at the end, gore so much gore, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28442913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garecc/pseuds/Garecc, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garecc/pseuds/Gunpowderdtim
Summary: Tim has quite the time in The City.Chapter One: Tim is Aphrodite and has the time of her lifeChapter Two: Tim is Achilles and he has An Awful Time In GeneralChapter Three: Tim is Persephone and ae have a pleasant time overall.An exploration at how a Mechanism can fall into a Role in a story, and not be able to pull themself out.
Relationships: Gunpowder Tim/Ares (UDAD), Gunpowder Tim/Patroclus (UDAD), minor Ashes O'Reilly/Gunpowder Tim
Series: Ready, Aim, Fire [32]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799860
Comments: 34
Kudos: 68





	1. When falling into a story

**Author's Note:**

> it was so hard to write about Ares because I kept writing Percy Jackson Ares.
> 
> Chapter two is finished, ill publish it when I finish chapter 3
> 
> [tim as aphrodite is from this post, i put my own spin on it though](https://gunpowderdtim.tumblr.com/post/638982441251602432/toysold1er-alright-hear-me-out-here-youve/)

The planet ahead of them looks interesting, feels like a story, has the lilt of a song. 

As they sail onward, the pull gets stronger, lured towards the story like a moth to a flame, like a ship with torn sails to a whirlpool, like spacedust to a black hole.

And as they close in, sharks to bleeding prey, the story is strong and they _know._ They _know_ there is an album here, a story for them to collect.

This is a planet of stories, and as they get closer, they know they cannot escape its grasp.

So they touch down on Labyrinth, and the **Story** begins.

Tim laughs as they land, because well.

This is fucking _Greek Mythology_ planet, so Tim starts laughing, laughs until he’s wheezing, because he hyperfixtated on this shit _in middle school._ He was going to punch Heracles in the face, and maybe whatever other jackasses he remembers when he hears their names.  
He smiles as they land because how hard can this fucking be?

How hard can _Greek Mythology_ be?

He knows this tale, and he’s ready to live it.

(At least, he hopes he is. He decides he’s going to be an Olympian moments after they touch down, because like _hell_ is he going to be one of the tragic heroes.)

He steps off Aurora and pauses, thinking about gender for the first time in a quite bit, because when you have other things to do, like revenge killing your family for eating the last brownie, you don't often fathom your pronouns, and hm. 

He/him is awful and wrong right now.

Sorting through pronouns, Tim looks for a decent set. Xe/xem is too nothing, ze/zir is too orange, fae/faer is closer, dae/daem is plainly wrong, ae/aer isn’t the worst, and finally she/her and oh. 

Huh.

Been a long while since she was a more than 80% girl in the gender area, a few years at least, but well. 

She’s a woman right now. She/her it's-a-threat. Been a while since that's happened. She whirls around to the others. “Before we split up and all that, are we doing hide and seek?” She starts, stretching an arm out to stop Marius from wandering off and becoming so impossible to find no one hears heads nor tails of him till they decide to leave. “Sure.” Jonny says at the same time as Ashes shrugs and says “I’m not really feeling hide and seek.”

They glare at each other a moment. A battle of wills between the most stubborn person Tim knows and the most firm.

“We _are_ doing hide and seek,” Jonny growls. Hand edging towards his pistol. “We haven’t _in ages and I’m fucking bored._ ”

“I don't feel like it.” Ashes shrugs. “You lot can.”

“ _Ashes!_ ” Jonny gripes. 

Tim sighs. “I am assuming we are doing hide and seek. I'm going to go hide. Fight it out you two. Also, more importantly, she/her for the foreseeable future.”

And then she’s off. 

Aphrodite seems like a safe bet. Tim decides as she asks around. There doesn't seem to be one, as she keeps getting odd looks as she describes a goddess none of them know of. 

She can already feel the ribbons of a **Role** wrapping around her, dragging her forward. 

Not a tight role, not one that sinks its teeth in deep. So deep if you ever tried to tear yourself from it before it's time ends, a piece of you would go with it. 

Also, Tim knows that she's gorgeous. She’s certainly pretty enough to do this, and she came from a sea of stars, which is rather close to seafoam if you squint a bit.

So she becomes an Olympian, and has a _fucking ball of it._

She’d never really been one for rich parties, for the bourgeoisie.

But also... She remembers reading about how parties were “different back then” and well, they sure fucking are when you’re surrounded by Immortals just as off the shits as you, who _aren’t_ tethered to this plane by a metal piece.

It's fun, it's _really fucking fun_.

People often forget that Aphrodite, while being a goddess of beauty and love, _is also a goddess of war._

She’s wed to a man named Hephaestus but well... It's Ares is who catches her eyes.

She smiles as he walks over, and from one war driven fellow to another, she and him are kindred spirits of battle.

And well, he’s _taller_ than her, and while Jonny is great and all, she misses having to lean up to kiss someone.

So she and Ares have a lovely affair, and Aphrodite makes her home amongst the Olympians.

She knows she’s made the right choice as she sees a war start.

A short thing, an uprising ending in slaughter.

Not even a proper war really, a skirmish between districts. A rather standard battle all things considered. She and Ares laughed about it all night. 

But well, the war was a tad too familiar. 

A tad too _real_ to her.

It was a tad, just a bit too close to the one she still wakes up screaming about, heart racing as she turns, stumbling to the lights, as she holds a gas mask to her face as she wheezes wheezes wheezes.

Ares holds her close those nights, he might love the glory of war, the violence, the slaughter and the blood, he cares for Aphrodite, and of course, he knows the face of the fear of the aftermath.

The wars here are never towards the heavens, never near Olympus.

They're deep in tunnels, and the government has no qualms about who it sends fighting, some are too young to grow beards, some so young they are hardly more than children and that well…

That hits a bit too close to home.

She’d been sent off to fight at hardly 17, died at 20.

And child soldiers make her _very_ uneasy.

But well, she can set that aside, smile and laugh, detached as she is from the mortals.

She is a ~~Mechanism~~ **Olympian** , and she does not fear the deaths of mortals.

She plays in this role, the line between Gunpowder Tim and Aphrodite blurring, but the line is always there. Never gone, and if things went sour, she could tear herself from it without losing too much of herself in the process.

She’s always herself, Gunpowder Tim, under a woven dress of lies. 

The Role is a fun one, but she never settles in it too deeply where she becomes just as much Aphrodite as she is Tim.

Not like Ashes as Hades, where the line between act and self blurred into nonexistence.

There is no line between Hades and Ashes, they are one in the same, and Ashes is deep in the **Role**.

Regardless of Ashes, Tim plays a part.

And sometimes, very rarely but sometimes, as she gives Psyche her tasks, as she, Athena, and Hera fight over the title of the most beautiful, she finds she would not be able to pull herself out.

She’s deep in the story, and she must play her part.

That is the will of the universe, after all. 

That is the path the **Story** must take.

For there to be a Trojan War, there must be an Aphrodite. 

But those times are far and between, and overall, the **Role** is a loose one.

But as the Trojan War stirs, the role loosens it's grasp. 

And Aphrodite finds herself on a date with Ares, and a new war stirring.

* * *

“Aph!” Ares’s eyes are bright as he sits down, gleaming with hardly concealed excitement. “You remember that boy, the one who deemed you the most beautiful?”

She nods idly as he speaks. Only half-listening as the first half of that sentence was lost to the void that is having shit auditory processing. 

“What was his name? I think it—”

“Paris?” She adds, hoping she didn't just make someone up or is thinking about a different thing. She only got half the first sentence, so she might be wrong.

“Yes! Paris! That’s the name.” 

She exhaled a tad sharply, thankful she hadn’t just made that whole interaction up. 

“Right, what about him?” She sits up a bit straighter, stimming by twirling her hair around her finger. Anything about that flaming mess of an interaction was bound to be at least a _bit_ fucking interesting. If being an Olympian was anything, it wasn't boring. “Did his father die? Is he king now?”

“You know how you promised him the most beautiful wife?” 

“Mmhm? What about it?” **Aphrodite** looks up, meeting Ares’s gaze. 

There is a dangerous light in his eyes, the light of a war brewing. A light Tim would recognize if she were Tim enough to notice. “Well, Paris he,” That smile is dangerous, gleeful. “He took a woman named Helen from Sparta, and claimed that as you promised him a wife he has rights to her.”

Her immediate reaction is to nod and listen to him ramble, but this does pique her interest. Bound to, at the very least, be some juicy gossip. But as Ares talks about the rising tensions around Troy, she understands his excitement.

As the Olympian who profits most from wars, he’d absolutely be the most excited here. 

She passes through the conversation as **Aphrodite** , listening to Ares ramble about weapons production and how everyone might take sides in this war, how being the main supplier of weapons, he would be key in the conflict, and sips her drink.

Later that night, sitting alone, Tim is Tim enough to recall her lessons, centuries ago now, on the story of the Trojan War, and pauses. Blood running cold.

Because she was branded Achilles eons ago.

And this **Role** had been getting looser.

She thinks back to her conversation with Ares, as he smiled a bloody, evil smile and his gleeful talk of the war that was brewing.


	2. you may find yourself lost,

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which tim is **Achilles**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lotta gore here buddies beware
> 
> I had a TIME writing this folks. Laughing manically and all that.

The Trojan war stirs, and the role of Achilles stirs as well.

Deep in his chest like a long-buried cicada about to emerge from its decades-long sleep.

With the Trojan War stirring, it's draw is stronger than **Aphrodite** ’s ever was, and it draws him in, he is an arrow let loose from its quiver, flying hopelessly towards its target.

Damned he is as he leaves **Aphrodite’s** house. 

He doesn't need to take this Role, he doesn't need to step into it, break it in like a pair of new boots.

He already fits it.

Molded to this task, this **Story** , like a key in a lock.

After all, during the first war, _the moon war_ , he'd been called a modern Achilles, and well.

The universe, the narrative that weaves through them all, the force that stitches their stories to life, pulls him into a tale of irony, violence, loss, and war.

He sheds Aphrodite like a loose skin, and enlists as a soldier.

The Trojan War is the tale of Achilles and it's not like he can miss it.

It's not like he can miss his own **Tale**.

It's not like the universe will let him shed the **Role** he was given millennia ago.

He knows how this ends.

He knows how Patroclus dies.

Stabbed in the stomach. Bleeding out. 

Truly, is coughing up blood from your ruined lungs so different from throwing up blood?

He knows the man he now kisses gently dies. He knows Patroclus’s life is snatched from his body. He knows.

He knows.

And yet, he kisses Patroclus between the fighting, between the battles, the charges. Between the gunshots and terror.

And yet, **_Achilles_ ** _is in love._

It's so similar and so different from Bertie. He and Bertie had been friends, never anything more, brothers almost, but Patroclus was his lover, and that gave the tale a different flavor.

He kisses Patroclus like the world was about to end, like every kiss is their last. After all, he has no way of knowing if it isn’t. 

As he faces the walls around Troy, as he falls into the **Role** he’d been given eons before this labyrinth began, before Daedalus ever conceptualized it he asks himself _why?_

He lives it in time, he lives the role with every beat of his heart, but watches from a distance screaming at himself _why?_

_Why is he doing it?_

Why is he setting himself up for heartbreak and pain?

Why, when he knows how it ends, is he holding Patroclus’s hand, smiling as he wishes him luck, and safety before the battle?

He knows Patroclus dies.

And yet he loves him.

And yet he loves him with every smile, every shared laugh.

And yet **Achilles** loves Patroclus.

He’s living a paradox. He’s embodying a **Role.**

The line blurs, and _Tim_ is **Achilles** as **Achilles** is _Tim_ . There is no _act_ Tim is putting on, no mask to remove.

There is simply the Tale Of **Achilles** , The tale of a grief-stricken soldier, the story thats been a part of him since before he was Mechanized, the story that his own tale was an echo of.

Tim is **Achilles** and the **Story** that hums in his veins has always been a part of him, and the narrative he finds himself in will not let him go.

He knows how this tale ends, and yet... He is **Achilles.** He is **Achilles** , and when a **Role** bites so deeply the line blurs well, one tends to _forget_.

But he knows some, not much but _some_ as he’s shepherded by puppet lines onward, he knows that something bad will happen, something horrible, something that will hurt him.

He refuses to fight. He is _done_.

He will _not let this_ **_Story_ ** _hurt him._

 ~~Tim~~ **Achilles** knows the ending is bad, and he is _done_.

Their side may be losing without their undying warrior. Without their invulnerable fighter.

He might be enomotarch, but **Achilles** does _not care._

These are mortals. Their lives are ultimately pointless. He clings to the pieces of him outside of this **Story** , not bound to this path, this **Tale**. It's hard to grasp, but he clings to the knowledge tightly.

But then his Patroclus, his beloved comes to him, begs for his otherworldly armor, begs for the chance to fight, to _win._

 **Achilles** cannot recall then where he acquired a vest that turns away all blaster fire, all bullets, cannot recall the origin of the garment, but well? 

**_Achilles_ ** _agrees._

Patroclus marches into battle, dressed in _Tim’s_ armor, and _dies._

The narrative, the story rushing through his veins as sure as blood _laughs._

 ~~Tim~~ **Achilles** _breaks_ as Patroclus dies.

He’d tried to avoid it. Tried to avoid the pain. Tried to avoid the ending he knew was creeping towards him.

But he couldn’t.

And in the end, _he sent Patroclus off._

 **Achilles** breaks as he relives his terror and pain and agony as he _rages._

_And rages._

He is ~~Gunpowder Tim~~ **Achilles** and he is _angry_.

He is going to kill the ~~lunar men~~ the **Trojans**.

He is going to destroy ~~the Kaiser~~ Hector.

_And he does._

He echoes the moon with every word, with every scream. With every moment of manic violence, of how he is equally willing to die, as he is to exact revenge.

He is the echo of his own story.

He is the echo of his own life.

Just as he was the echo of a million stories before him.

And

He

Does

Not

Care.

 **Achilles dies and stands, fights and dies and burns and screams and** **_drowns._ **

Achilles lives through things impossible.

And 

Keeps 

On

Fighting.

* * *

**Achilles’** hands do not shake as he aims. As he makes sure there is a shell in the chamber. His hands do not pause, and he does not hesitate.

This is revenge.

This is **Revenge.**

He pulls the trigger, and shoots Hector through the throat. He does not miss. ~~He has never missed, he’s the gunner after all.~~

Hector falls dead. And Achilles in his immortality, Achilles in his undying rage, steps forward, and the Trojans fall back.

He is blood-soaked and violent. He is unfathomable and dark. He is churning gears and an unfailing aim. He is a ~~Mechanism~~ tragic hero.

He kicks Hector’s head once, twice, a third time. He stomps down on his broken and dead face.

Bones shift under his boot, and all Achilles can do is _smile._ Teeth sharp and _angry._

He is _angry._ He is _raging._ He is _furious, malicious, rotten and livid._

His anger is not quenched by the corpse under his feet. His rage has not been fettered.

Hector could still be revived in the Acharon. Hector could be brought back.

 **And Achilles would** **_not_ ** **have that.**

So **Achilles** loads his gun once more, and shoots him through the head. Then again. Again and again and again, twelve times, until all that was left was a bloody pulp. Of a head, of a brain.

No one would see Hector again.

Nothing usable by the Acharon. Nothing usable. Hector was dead. Hector was destroyed. And **Achilles** has won.

And thats _all that mattered._

He does not care for this war, he does not care for Troy, does not care for the walls, only for Patroclus and his revenge. He kicks at the puddle of flesh and gore, and he isn’t exactly sure if he’s laughing or crying.

 **Achilles** is a **Role**.

 **Achilles** never lived as Aphrodite.

 **Achilles** is an angry, passionate and _livid_ soldier, and **Achilles** won.

Hector is dead.

And **Achilles** is _numb_.

* * *

It's well known that Achilles is invulnerable. It's well known Achilles cannot be slain. It's well known that Achilles’s only weak spot is his heel.

And well?

The Achilles _Tim_ grew up on tales of died of a arrow to the heel, the one point of his body that could be injured.

The one point of his body that could be damaged.

The one place he could be killed.

Now Tim? Tim cannot be killed. Not any sort of permanently at least. 

But **Achilles** can be.

And **Achilles** and _Tim_ are one in the same, and _Tim’s_ weak point is his eyes.

With Patroclus and Hector dead, **Achilles** ’s tale is winding down.

Falling in on itself as he approaches his ending.

(Once you gain a **Role** , you either die in it or shed it when the story ends)

Paris takes aim, and shoots.

Pulling his own trigger. Ending his own war.

Achilles is caught in the head, the bullet shattering his skull and ripping through one of his eyes.

And where normally **Achilles** would stand, minutes later, raging once more, he _doesn't_.

He’s as dead as the end of his **Tale** declares him to be.

The body of **Achilles** is taken from the battlefield, **Story** over. Metal dripping from his eyes as his body is laid next with the rest of the corpses from the battle, and brought down to the Acharon, where he is to be added to the Archives.

Down to the Acheron, where **Hades** has made their home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been ages since i did a multichap.


	3. but dont worry, one day the tale will end.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Tim is in the underworld

**Hades** sat on their Throne, listening to Thanatos’s complaints about the increased work of wiring brains into the Acharon with an abnormal amount of deaths from the Trojan War.

Complaining endlessly about how there were  _ so many bodies  _ and  _ why is it my job to sort them  _ and  _ they're so damaged sometimes it's such a fucking HASSLE Hades it's not like you understand, you never HELP ME you're so CRUEL _ and other senseless whining _. _

Dae were sprawled against the side of the throne complaining.

**Hades** didn't mind much, not really. It was nice having some sort of company.

~~ For some reason, being alone seemed unnatural to them. But they’d never been close with the other Olympians, so it didn't make much sense. ~~

~~ After all, who would they be close with? ~~

Thanatos paused in daer complaining, and  **Hades** looked up, because nothing short of an emergency shut Thanatos up once dae started rambling.

Charon stood in the entryway, looking like he’d rather be absolutely anywhere but here. “Messr Hades?” His voice was gravel and rocks and  _ sheer annoyance.  _

**Hades** straightened up a bit, feigning interest. Charon never had much of anything important to say. Probably just another case of some bodies falling from the carriages, or more mortals refusing to pay their dues for body removal. Boring things like that. “What is it, Charon?”

Charon’s gaze grew a bit darker, but he didn't falter. “There is somewhat of an issue.”

“And what is it?”  **Hades** holds back a groan. He never got to the point. Ever. Stretched conversations out with pointless pleasantries until  **Hades** just wants to shoot him and be done with it. “Did more bodies get destroyed?”

Thanatos audibly groans.

“No. One.. woke up. A soldier.”

Hades paused. “Are you certain it's not just a very convincing rebodied one?”

“It bleeds.”

“Newer rebodying models can do that.” Thanatos mumbles. “Very expensive and annoying to set up, so much work that I could be spending on wiring bodies but  _ no _ it's  _ also my job to do complicated rebodying work. _ But it's  _ possible _ .”

“It's not rebodied.” Charon snaps at Thanatos, they glare at each other for a solid minute before  **Hades** clears their throat. “I believe it is Achilles who... has reportedly died and woken up before.”

“The invulnerable soldier?”  **Hades** asks, pausing as they realize this might be a bit more severe than Charon bothering them with his typical nonsense. Especially since Zeus  _ wanted him dead. _

Pausing as they realize that invulnerable and waking up from death means something to them in a distant way that makes them want to go check on this. “Is there anything else of note, Charon? And are the Furies handling it?”

“Of  _ course  _ they are.” Charon sounds disgusted at the insinuation that he was incompetent enough to not get them. “And... Hm. The soldier appears to have prosthetic eyes, but of no model I recognize, certainly not Hephaestus’s work.”

And that rings a bell. 

**Hades** has no idea  _ what _ bell it is. Why some bit of them is worried, and concerned at that. 

It's ominous given they haven't felt emotions anything like that in a long while now.

**Hades** slowly stands, patting Thanatos’s shoulder as they rise. Dae smile at Hades, basking in the vague praise, before dae spring to daer feet, plopping daemself down in their spot.  **Hades** raises an eyebrow, but Thanatos reacts by throwing daer legs over the armrest, and sticking daer tongue out.  **Hades** sighs, and turns towards Charon. Ignoring Thanatos’s antics. 

“Show me.”  **Hades** commands, and Charon pales a bit.

“Right this way, Messr.”

* * *

**Hades** steps into the bloody, gorish room, not really expecting it to be anything other than a rather expensive rebodying job that fooled Charon.

But they recognize them, and thats… impossible.

_ Ashes _ freezes, because thats  _ Tim _ , thats  _ Tim.  _ One of her eyes a bloody disaster, dressed in bloodied soldier clothes with a buzzcut that made her look the same as she did eons ago. 

She looked to anything like she’d been through hell and  _ those are their furies holding her down.  _ About to cut out her throat again. 

“Stop.”  _ Ashes  _ growls, stepping forward.

Alekto jerks back, hands in the air. “M’lord—”

“Leave her be.” Ashes (or is it  **Hades** ?) snaps. “Begone.”

And they are. 

So it's just them now.

“Ashes?” Tim's voice is shaking, desperate.

“Hey.” Ashes manages, already pulling Tim up, away from this room away from this blood. 

Tim stumbles on her feet, legs giving as she falls against them. 

Without much thought, and no hesitation they pick her up. She exhales sharply, wincing but grips onto their shoulder as she always does.

“Pronouns?” Ashes asks as they open the door with their foot. 

“Ae/aer.” Tim mumbles as ae clings to Ashes. 

Soon they arrive at  **Hades** ’s bed chambers, and  _ Ashes _ sets Tim on the bed. “Let me look at your eye.” Ashes sits down. Placing a hand on Tim’s forehead to keep aer from looking away. 

“It's fine,” Ae mutters, but doesn't pull away. “Bullet came out when they were trying to cut out my brain, visions coming back.” 

Ae is right, the metal is repairing itself as Ashes watches. Glimmering rainbow. Blood gushes down aer cheeks from under the metal, chunks of miscellaneous flesh and bone forcing its way out.

It's not quite tears, but the comparison comes to mind.

It might almost be tears, but it's also a fucking mess.

Ashes stops worrying once Tim proves ae doesn't need to head back to Aurora for emergency repairs. Looking up down right and left, distance reading, etc.

Aer eye was fine. Ae was not. Ae is blood-drenched and shaking as ae sits up and curls into Ashes’s outstretched arm. 

“Achilles huh?” Ashes asks a few minutes later. Pulling Tim close.

Tim nods, a sob clawing its way out of aer chest. Then ae is sobbing, curled into Ashes’ arms. 

**Hades** had heard of Achilles, the invulnerable warrior, the undying man with impossible armor. Had heard of aer rage at Patroclus’s death.

_ Ashes  _ winces a bit at that thought. No wonder aer had gotten dragged into the role of  **Achilles** . No fucking wonder.

Damn.

“Last I heard you were Aphrodite.” Ashes strokes Tim’s rapidly growing hair from aer face so it doesn't get bloody.

Tim smiles shakily, “That was fun.” Ae goes to wipe the blood from aer face, but Ashes catches aer hand. 

“You’ll get even more blood everywhere.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’ll get you a towel, and a servant to run you a bath. Alright?” 

“...Thank you, Ashes.”

“‘S nothing, Tim.” 

Ashes leaves the room, rounds the corner only to see Thanatos, standing there, dae take a few steps back, eyes wide. 

“Um.” Dae say blankly. 

**Hades** sighs. “Tell a servant to run a bath for our guest.” It's an order, and Thanatos nods sharply. “Yessir.”

**Hades** walks to the nearest restroom, and pauses.  _ Ashes  _ grabs a towel, wets it, then takes a dry one.

They were starting to get a headache.

Ashes walked back to their room, tossed over the towels and Tim cleaned off aer face, looking relieved.

It wasn't long later a servant knocked, and Ashes walked Tim to the baths.

If after Tim was cleaned up, after the bloody sheets were changed, they curled into Ashes’s arms and sobbed for hours, that was between them.

* * *

**Hades** sat on their throne bemusedly watching Tim picking over a plate of food 

They weren't quite as deep in the  **Role** as before, with Tim as a reminder.

“What sort of choices are these?” Ae grumbles. “I don't even  _ recognize _ half of them! The fuck is this?” Tim gestures at a pomegranate.

“That one is from Earth actually.”  **Hades** mutters under their breath.

“I don't believe you. Why don't you have  _ any  _ apples?”

“Because I don't  _ like  _ apples.”

Ae groans, and grabs the pomegranate. Picking at it dolefully. “How would you even eat this?” Ae demands. 

“Give it here.”  **Hades** holds out their hand, and they cut it open. 

Tim takes it, staring at the seeds dubiously. “What the fuck.”

“You eat the seeds.”

“Those are  _ seeds? _ ” Tim looks at them with the most  _ baffled _ look. “I don't believe you.”

“Try it.”  **Hades** laughs. “I dare you.”

“Fuck off,” Tim plucks out six seeds, and puts them in aer mouth. Testing. “Not awful.” Tim admits, setting it down a distance from him and grabbing a citrus adjacent fruit instead. “But this one looks less like something Raph would make and call science. So I'm eating it.”

**Hades** laughs softly, then pauses as an idea strikes them.

“Tim?”

“Mm?” Tim looks

“Do you want to be  **Persephone** ?”

Tim pauses a moment, then nods. “Why not? Better than falling into a shit  **Role** again.”

**Hades** smiles, beckons Tim over, and presses a kiss to the back of  **Persephone** ’s hand.

* * *

Jonny, because he is **_Jonny_** and he’s _not giving in to some fucking_ ** _Role._** _He’s doing murder and having fun damnit._

Jonny wakes up on the floor of  **Hades** ’s throne room. Hand already on his gun he springs to his feet, then pauses.

**Persephone** is laughing, sprawled on  **Hades** ’s lap. Legs strewn over the armrest, head resting on  **Hades** ’s shoulder.

It was Tim.

“Oh fuck  _ off. _ ” Jonny groans, pouting. “ _ Really _ ? When’s the last time you two were together? You didn't think to tell me?” He’s not angry, just a tad miffed.

“Ae/aer, by the way.”  **Persephone** smiles, settling against  **Hades** ’s shoulder. 

Jonny groans, standing up. He holsters his gun and climbs up the throne, sitting on top of Tim, who squeaks and tries futilely to kick him away. All while Jonny grins like he’s won a contest.

**Hades** laughs a bit, but doesn't intervene.

It's nice having their family around.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: @gunpowderdtim


End file.
